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The size of BYD's factory

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Re: The size of BYD's factory

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were many terrible electric cars out of China for years. Every province had its own little EV manufacturers. China's car industry is less concentrated than the US, but the big players are winning. BYD is only the 9th largest carmaker in China. SAIC, Changan, and Geeley are the top 3. SAIC and Changan are state-owned, but Geeley is private, as is BYD. SAIC makes about 5 million vehicles a year. General Motors, o…

it will take years before they can prove that their cars are made to last. I won’t be lining up to buy them but in 5-10 years perhaps

Mine comes with a 5 year warranty, and a 7 year battery replacement warranty. I'm fine with not waiting.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#252
post #183

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Of course we can motivate ourselves. But they're acting like we did in the 1800s through the mid 1900s. They just build anywhere no matter what. They have no interest in dealing with environmental concerns. The officially released pollution levels in China are mind-boggling and they still do not represent how bad it really is. You think US manufacturers wouldn't be delighted to just buy a few hundred acres land and s…

Counterpoint: See the speed with which Colossus has been (is being) assembled in Memphis Tennessee. Yes, on an existing industrial site but this is still one damn impressive accomplishment. https://www.servethehome.com/inside-100000-nvidia-gpu-xai-co...

A data center is much easier than building an industrial factory

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are waking up, and to be fair, Tesla really led the way in the US for the last few years because they had no choice(no one would take them seriously). The question is can the West turn the ship around before its too late?

When Trump ups everything from China by 100% I guess US would be able to make something with profit?

Vietnam and Mexico will massively profit.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#254
post #159

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I doubt it. It's much easier to either launder or manufacture the goods in a third country, that benefits from most of the same incentives that made Chinese manufacturing go through the roof. Americans will be buying Chinese goods with "made in Vietnam" or "made in Mexico" stamped on it. The American profit will be in setting up those laundering schemes

If the Trump tariffs are based on country of final assembly, then yes, final assembly will just occur somewhere else, but it will take a couple of years to setup, and the inflation shock by that time will have done a lot of damage to the economy (recession likely, depression possible). It makes sense that it took Trump forever to find a treasury secretary willing to go along with this.

You can bribe officials in Vietnam/Mexico. So they'll be your country of "final assembly".

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like these need to be included in almost any discussion about transport or in fact any discussion about any change. Most people (or both sides) dismiss ideas because they are not 100% perfect. And ignore the fact that nothing can be perfect

If we only do a little bit, we'll only accomplish a little bit.

Yes, we'd better not do a little bit. Surely then, we'll accomplish a lot.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#257
post #3

The scale is just insane .. hard to comprehend a 3km/2mi wide factory.

To my knowledge the largest factory in the world is BASF Ludwigshafen (Germany) with 10 km². Here is an aerial photo: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:LudwigshafenBASF2017-0... Followed by Volkswagen Wolfsburg (also Germany) with 6.5 km². Seems the BYD factory is competing with it for rank #2.

I guess it depends on what qualifies as a factory. Azovstal in Mariupol is around 11 km^2 and certainly isn’t the largest in the world.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People used to say the same things about things made in Taiwan, then Japan, and then China, for things like electronics and white goods. It was true - until suddenly it wasn't. In engineering you ultimately have to build stuff. Over, and over, and over again. You'll mess it up a lot at first, and then one day you'll realize that you haven't. China is not stuck in 1965 trying to make an EV out of a saucepan and a back…

Yeah but Japan has long had a cultural obsession with delivering high quality products. I don't know if China ever did, but if it did, much of it was wiped out during cultural revolution and replaced with succeed at all costs. And there is a difference between success and excellence. For example there have been zero bullet train fatalities in its entire history, and several Chinese HSR fatal accidents already. For po…

Japanese-American here. This is revisionism. Japan was absolutely known for low quality products in the past. Probably the best "pop-culture" reference to this is "Back to the Future" when Marty travels back in time to 1955 and shows Doc a Made in Japan product (camera, I think?) Doc says its junk because its Made in Japan, but Marty sees it as high quality because its from the 80s.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#259
post #58

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Because that's what authoritarians invariably do. They abhor liberal democracies and seek to extend their domineering control over as many people as they can. The CCP is an absolutely tyrannical organization that denies their own citizens the rights that you and I take for granted. Why would they ever desire their neighbours to have what they deny their own people? Look no further than Hong Kong and North Korea to se…

Did they invade Hong Kong? It's a very western viewpoint that invasion is the only way to affect change.

Now do Tibet.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#260
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our best chance to avoid catastrophic outcomes from climate change The US and EU are long off-peak carbon emissions (emissions even decreased during the Trump administration I, even using a trendline ignoring COVID). The biggest emitter right now is China, and it's emissions are growing not shrinking, and a considerable amount of that (including 90% of the worlds new coal plants) goes to projects like this.

Kinda, but we’re not really in a position to blame them right? To some extend, sure, but that’s easy to say when you’ve already got yours.

What does blame have to do with anything? Emissions are emissions.
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